Adrenaline
by jackwabbit
Summary: What Happens When The Adrenaline Wears Off? Desparate Measures, Sam POV Vignette.


**Adrenaline**

Rated: PG (minor language)

Category: S/J 'Friendship Plus', Sam Angst, POV, Episode Tag

Season: Five

Spoilers: Desperate Measures

Summary: Sam POV Vignette-What Happens When The Adrenaline Wears Off?

Note: They are human, after all.

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I never knew adrenaline could last so long. Adrenaline can do strange things to a person, like make them forget about mortal danger and make things seem better than they are. My adrenaline reserves have always served me well, and the past…what is it now? Five days? Yeah, the last five days, have been no exception.

Adrenaline got me through the rescue by Colonel O'Neill and Maybourne. I still haven't figured out quite how that happened, but I really don't care. I got out of there, and that's all that counts. Adrenaline got me through a futile chase through the bowels of an abandoned hospital, tracking a renegade Goa'uld. It allowed me to report Colonel O'Neill's injury calmly and coldly. It got me through the ambulance ride he and I shared to the local hospital and then through the plane ride back to Colorado. All the way back to the mountain, and all the way through my physical with Janet, adrenaline was my friend. I even kept up a façade of normalcy through the next few days, with inquiries and investigations and dealing with a surly Colonel in the infirmary. I was too busy to think about what I had been through, so I didn't. Everything was reported, as best I could remember it, but it was clinical and detached. Like I was reporting on events that had happened to a stranger. When I wasn't caught up in some report or detail, I was sleeping. I was tired. Too tired to think. So tired I fell immediately asleep when I hit a bed.

But now…now it is five days later. All the reports are done. Case closed. Investigations as finished as they are going to be, given the circumstances. The Colonel has even been released from the infirmary. And I am alone. At home. I'm not really tired. In fact, I don't think I could sleep if I wanted to, despite the late hour. One thought is running through my head like a freight train on a circular track. Over and over. That bastard was going to kill me. That son of a bitch was going to kill me.

I don't know why it's bothering me so much. It's not like I haven't been in danger of losing my life before. Far from it. But to be strapped to a bed and helpless is a whole 'nother matter. To be systematically euthanized for scientific study, well, I guess that just doesn't sit well with me.

I feel the bile rise in my throat unbidden. I make it to the kitchen sink from my couch, but barely, before losing my battle with my stomach. The cheese and crackers snack I had earlier is less than appetizing this time around, but I can't even bring myself to brush my teeth when the heaves subside. I collapse to the floor like an empty shell and the realization finally hits me how close this one came. My entire body starts to shake, and I feel myself losing control. I'm not ready to die. I have so much left to do.

I don't want to do what I know I will do next, but I can't deal with this alone. Not this time. I do so much with no help from anyone, but this…I just don't think I can handle it. My pride finally subsides enough that I reach out to the one person who might understand this. The one person I can let in on occasion. He never tells, and he never looks at me differently. I've been there for him a few times, too, when things got to be too much, and I follow the same rules. It's a tidy arrangement we have, leaning hard on each other and then pretending we didn't have to.

My fingers reach for the phone and dial without any conscious effort. I'm both relieved and annoyed when a steady voice answers the phone with my name, as though he knew I would call. My emotions threaten to overwhelm me, and my pride threatens to make me hang up the phone, but for just this once, I need someone to be here for me, dammit. I have no idea how to say this or anything else I'm thinking, but I finally manage to eek out a greeting, such as it is, and I can feel the rest about to tumble out of me like pills from a dropped bottle. On nights like this, he has that effect on me. I spill my guts. Let it all out. And somehow, it helps. It makes me feel better, even though I know it is inappropriate. And it always starts with a single word whispered over a phone line in the dark.

"Sir?"


End file.
